A popular way to feed infants is with nursing bottles. A nursing bottle typically includes an elongate container containing fluid sustenance that is connected to a resilient nipple having a passage and an opening through which the infant may draw the sustenance. The opening is biased into a normally closed position, restricting fluid from exiting the bottle. When an infant sucks on the nipple, the negative pressure created urges fluid from the container into and through the passage, out of the opening, then into the infant's mouth. Numerous containers and nipples for infant bottle feeding exist.
During or after feeding, many infants pacify themselves by sucking or gumming on objects, such as a nursing bottle nipple or conventional pacifier. These pacifying activities may stimulate development and/or aid in falling asleep. Numerous infant pacifiers also exist.
Infants often alternate between feeding and pacifying activities, especially toward the end of a feeding when an infant may be falling asleep. When an infant is falling asleep, parents are reluctant to agitate the infant by removing what the infant may be sucking or gumming on, such as a nursing bottle nipple. However, permitting the infant to suck on a conventional nipple, rather than a designated pacifier, allows the infant to draw air through the passage in the nipple, which the infant would swallow eventually in an uncomfortable amount. Ingested air can cause infants to become uncomfortable and colicky.
Infants' requirement for nourishment and predilection for pacifying activities, and the disparate requirements and limitations on devices for same, illuminate a need for a combined pacifier/nipple that allows an infant to draw fluid therethrough when feeding, yet prohibits the infant from drawing fluid therethrough when pacifying.
In addition to having appropriate infant care equipment, infant care givers need to be able to use or manipulate the equipment, typically while simultaneously holding onto an infant at the same time. Feeding, changing bottles or pacifying the infant while holding an infant and tending to accessories typically on hand, like diaper bags, can be cumbersome and frustrating. Thus, a need exists for combining the function of the bottle nipple and the pacifier to free care givers for managing other matters while holding an infant.
Sometimes care givers provide infants with fluid readily available from commercial establishments, like bottled water. Commercial packaging for such fluids often have a resealable, pushable closure or valved cap assembly. Unfortunately, infants often are not skilled enough to drink from such closures without spilling. Thus, a need exists for a combined pacifier/nipple with a quick connect fitting that is mountable on a valved cap assembly.
What is needed and not taught or suggested in the art is a simple, combined pacifier/nipple with a quick connect fitting.